


The Company of Giants

by HeyAssbuttImBatman



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Disney Princesses, Mulan (1998), Mulan - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Character, Cat/Human Hybrids, F/M, M/M, Mentions of Power Imbalances, Multi, No Incest, Not Canon Compliant, Polyamory, Queer Characters of Color, Trans Character, soul searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26006005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyAssbuttImBatman/pseuds/HeyAssbuttImBatman
Summary: The Hua family's twins are deadly and mysterious. Said to have been blessed by the gods themselves, they have been raised for generations to serve the Emperor. Hua Mulan and Hua Ping, the current pair of twins, are sent to war in the wake of an attack by Shan Yu, but they are no less the Emperor's personal assassins for being under Li Shang's command.Somehow, Shang ends up married to them.
Relationships: Fa Mulan & Fa Ping (Disney), Fa Mulan/Li Shang (Disney), Fa Ping/Li Shang (Disney)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 121





	The Company of Giants

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [your fingertips to knives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10180976) by [TheTartWitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch). 



> I did very little research for this fic, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies. As one of the first movies I ever watched that discussed genderqueerness (whether Disney intended to or not), Mulan has a very special place in my heart. This fic was very heavily inspired by a fic by TheTartWitch which is linked above.

“How is he?” Shang asks when Chi Fu exits the tent. Chi Fu’s face turns red with anger. 

“That is no man!” he exclaims, and Shang is lucky that the men are all asleep, because he’d hate for them to see him stumble where he stands. He feels as though his world is shifting. 

“What?”

But Chi Fu doesn’t answer; he waves his hand and makes a disgusted sound, and goes off to his own tent, probably to add this to his report. Shang watches him go for a moment and then turns to the tent. No doubt both Mulan and Ping heard all the commotion and are waiting for him to enter, so after taking a deep breath, he straightens his shoulders and does. 

Ping’s eyes are the first thing he sees. They’re glowing faintly green in the low light of the lantern, the slit pupils wide and his face exhausted and wary. At his side, nearly unnoticeable at first, Mulan sits drenched in shadow, her face tilted away from the light so her eyes don’t give her away. She watches Shang guardedly, and bristles a bit when he gets too close. 

He understands why, even though he’s a little hurt, so he stops a respectful distance away and tries not to stare at Ping’s heavily bandaged chest when he sits up. 

“Is it true, then?” Shang asks, and a growl rumbles through the tent. When Ping glares at Mulan, she stops.

“No,” says Ping, those cat eyes pinning Shang in place, that low voice calm but insistent. “It’s not. I am a man, no matter what I look like, or what others think of me.”

The pieces of the world slot back into place, and Shang nods decisively, relieved as the feeling of being off-balance goes away. It is a feeling he gets often around the Hua twins, but never to this degree, and never so uncomfortably. 

“Okay,” he says, and, “How is the wound?”

Ping smiles widely, and even Mulan’s shoulders relax.

“Not bad,” Ping says. “I should be able to ride tomorrow or the day after.”

“Thanks to you two and your stunt with the cannon, we have more than enough time to reach the Emperor and report to him of Shan Yu’s demise. Take as many days as you need.”

* * *

When the Emperor is taken, Shang does not panic as the people do, or shout as his soldiers do, or stand in dumbfounded shock as Chi Fu does. 

He turns to Mulan and Ping and, with all the urgency he’s suppressing coming out in his voice, says, “What do we do?”

The men are talking of knocking down a pillar to use as a battering ram, but Shang and the Hua twins know that it won’t work. This palace was built to withstand siege, nevermind the fact that no one ever envisioned the Emperor getting trapped inside. 

But Mulan looks at the pillars, too, and then turns to Ping, who grins. 

“Good idea,” he says, even though she didn’t say anything. “I’ll go get Yao and the others. You find the concubines.”

As he rushes off towards the men, Shang turns to Mulan. 

“Concubines?”

“Concubines.” She looks at him shrewdly. “How do you think you’d look in makeup?”

* * *

They don’t even need Yao, Ling, and Chien Po to go with him, because Shang as a concubine is distracting enough on his own. If the size of Shan Yu’s men is any indication, the dainty, frail women that are considered beautiful in China probably don’t do anything for the Hun soldiers. Shang, with his tall stature and proud bearing, his broad shoulders and trim waist—Shang has them tripping over themselves to please him. 

And then they’re tripping over themselves for an entirely different reason as Yao, Ling, and Chien Po drop from the ceiling with war cries in their throats and angry intent in their eyes. Mulan and Ping sneak behind them and enter the room where the Emperor is being held. 

“You make a fetching woman, Captain,” Ling says cheekily, but Shang is too busy sneaking after the twins to reply.

* * *

Shang’s heart doesn’t stop racing until Mulan and Ping return safely from the roof and are standing, whole and unhurt, in front of him.

“China is in your debt,” the Emperor says to them, bowing at the waist. Shang and the rest of China drop to their knees. He looks up at them and smiles at the stunned looks on their faces. “Anything within my power to give is yours.”

Ping has the Emperor’s golden medallion around his neck. Mulan holds the sword of the late General Li. They look at each other, and then at Shang, and he knows what they are going to ask for before they even open their mouths. 

“We would like Captain Li Shang.”

The Emperor doesn’t startle like Shang does, but he does pause before straightening back up to his intimidating full height.

“In what capacity?” he asks. 

“To wed,” says Ping. “To follow tradition.”

Shang’s confusion must show, because Mulan says, “There have been Hua twins in the Emperor’s employ for as long as there has been a Hua family. The twins share everything.” She smiles meaningfully.

“Captain Li?” The Emperor says. Shang feels off-balance again, and he finds that it’s not as unwelcome now as it usually is. He tries to imagine it, a life with Ping and Mulan at his side always, and a warm feeling blooms in his chest, spreading color to his cheeks. 

But he can’t accept it, not now. He is painfully aware of the way things stand at the moment. He is kneeling, dressed as one of the Emperor’s concubines, and Mulan and Ping are the Heroes of China, second in rank now only to the Emperor himself. 

Slowly, he stands, but clasps his fist in his hand and bows. 

“I’m honored by the offer,” he says, knowing that should any of the three in front of him order it, he’d have no choice but to accept. “I ask for time to make a decision. I’d like to get my affairs in order first.”

His gaze flicks to the sword in Mulan’s hands.

“Of course,” says the Emperor. “I give you leave to return home with my condolences. We will expect you here in six months, where you shall take your place as the new General of the Imperial Army, if you wish it.”

Just when Shang thought he couldn’t be any more shocked. . .. 

He bows lower, and with one last look at Ping and Mulan, he turns to find his horse. It might be excessive to leave immediately, as his family’s home isn’t far from the capital, but it’s still a good few days’ ride. Besides that, he’s running away. Everything is simply too overwhelming right now; he’s been offered a marriage and a promotion by the three most powerful people in China, when all he ever expected from his lot in life was to work his way slowly through the ranks. 

He needs to ride and clear his head.

* * *

By the time he reaches the city where he grew up, his legs and back are aching from riding for almost five days straight, but his heart and head feel lighter than they did before. He’d stopped at a stream three days ago to bathe off the makeup and perfume the concubines dressed him in, so that when he enters the house courtyard, he is flushed from riding and smells like horse and sweat and the road. 

His mother hugs him anyway.

They haven’t seen each other in almost five years, and he’s pleased to see that she looks to be in good health. Even the effects of aging—the elegant lines around her mouth and eyes, the touch of grey at her temples—only make her more beautiful, more distinguished.

“Come, my son,” she says when she pulls away. Her voice is tinged with pride, though there’s no way news of what happened in the Imperial City has made it here yet, so she can’t possibly know what he’s done. “Come greet your brother and sister.”

“Sister?” Shang says, because he had no sister when he left. But when he walks up to the front door to properly greet his older brother, there is a woman standing at his side, her belly beginning to grow round with child and her eyes cast down demurely. There’s been a marriage since he left, then.

Even as he bows to his brother and enters the house, as he bathes off the sweat and dust from the road and joins his family for tea, he can’t stop thinking about his brother’s new wife. Would Mulan look like that if they married? Would she cast her eyes demurely to the ground and obey his every whim?

No, Shang decides. She wouldn’t. Disconcerted by the direction his thoughts have gone in, he tries to forget what happened in the Capital at least for a moment and enjoy his time with his family. His father’s other wife is there with her child, the younger half-brother who Shang resented growing up but who has now become an ally against their older brother’s unbearable doting.

The meal the servants prepare is delicious, the conversation light but warm. Shang misses his father so much that he can barely swallow around the lump in his throat. 

He has to tell them before too much time passes. 

After dinner, he does.

* * *

The months pass like water over stones: swiftly, smoothly, and so gently that Shang hardly notices it. 

They hold the funeral as soon as possible. There is no body, but they perform the rites anyway, and afterwards the whole household mourns for days. Shang mourns for weeks, and Shang’s mother for months, but one day she exits her room looking as poised and gentle as she was the day Shang returned home, her eyes a little less bright but her spirit no more broken.

“The Li family endures,” she tells him. “We grow stronger from our defeats and move on, stronger and wiser for the experience.”

Shang takes her words to heart. He stops running from the problem of the Hua twins.

He loves them. He knows he does, and they know he does, and at the very least he knows they desire him, because they requested him from the Emperor when they could have had land or subjects or power.

The problem, Shang muses, is that there is nothing normal about this situation, or at least there isn’t for him. He’d done some investigating into the history of the Hua twins and found that Mulan was right: it’s tradition for them to share lovers. But the Hua twins are almost legends in China and just as mysterious, and not many people are aware of the bond the twins always have. 

How would people react to Shang marrying them—not one first and the second as a concubine, but both of them equally? 

And then he stops and wonders—does he really care?

* * *

As the second son of the first wife, Shang understands how to run the household but has no practical experience, and now that his older brother has an heir on the way, Shang will never get that practical experience. His brother has been running the household for five years now, anyway, with help from the money Shang and his father would send every month, so Shang won’t feel guilty when he leaves again. He will still send money. 

By now, all of China knows what happened at the Imperial City, and though the details have surely gotten muddled, two things are certain: the Hua twins truly earned their place as the Heroes of China, and the young, untried, untested Captain Li has finally proven himself. 

“You must accept the Emperor’s generous offer,” his mother says after he finally tells her why he left the Imperial Capital. They’re sitting outside in the courtyard, watching the sun rise over the mountains in the distance, and though the dawn is chilly and damp with dew, neither of them minds. 

“I should,” he agrees. She studies him for a moment. 

“You don’t know if you want to.”

“I want to make Father proud,” Shang says. “He raised me for the military my whole life. If I accept, I’ll be the youngest General in the history of China.”

“But is that what you want?” she asks. He shrugs, because he hasn’t really thought about it, but he doesn’t think he’d mind either way. He hesitates; his promotion isn’t what he’s been worrying about lately.

“There is something else,” he says slowly. She nods. 

“I thought there might be. You have never been the kind of boy to worry about only one thing at a time.”

At one point he might have ducked his head sheepishly, but now he merely smiles.

“I got a marriage proposal from China’s Saviors.”

She blinks. “Hua Mulan?”

There’s no point in delaying the inevitable. He needs to get it out in the open, and now, when there’s no one around but his mother and the slowly lightening sky—now’s the perfect time. “And her brother. The Hua twins share. They always have.”

His mother is silent for so long that Shang starts to get worried. He looks over at her, only to find her watching him with her lips pressed tightly together. Her eyes are filled with something akin to fear.

“Do you know,” she begins slowly, “what the Hua twins do?”

He blinks. This isn’t where he expected the conversation to go. But his mother is one of the wisest people he knows; he’s never questioned her before, and he isn’t about to start now. “They’re the Emperor’s personal servants.”

She snorts, the sound so inelegant and so unlike her that Shang startles. “They are more than servants; they’re _assassins_. The Hua family trains its children in the ways of death and war, and in return for the Emperor’s favor, they give their twins to him to do with as he pleases. Normally, he pleases to use them as bodyguards. A year ago, he sent them to war.”

Shang sucks in a sharp breath, holds it for a few seconds, and then releases it.

“Well,” he says lightly. “That explains why they were both so proficient when they showed up at my training camp.”

“Everything about them is unconventional. Most wouldn’t understand, and you’d have to stand strong under scrutiny and contempt. Do not make this decision lightly, my son. The Hua twins are dangerous.”

Her sentence hangs in the air.

“But?” he prompts, and she smiles.

“But this could bring prosperity. You would be in the Emperor’s favor, and they would be able to protect you from your enemies. It would raise you to a station above even your father’s.”

He looks down and swallows. “But Father wouldn’t have approved of this, would he?”

“Most likely not,” his mother says plainly. “Your father valued tradition, and there is nothing traditional about the Hua family. But, my son, your father would want you to be happy. _I_ want you to be happy.”

She reaches out and clasps his hand, and Shang feels like a child again, running to his mother for guidance in times of greatest strife. If ever he needed her counsel, it’s now.

“Mother, what do I do?” he asks, his voice small and unsure as it hasn’t been since he was first sent to a military training camp years and years ago.

“I cannot tell you that. You must discover it for yourself. But it may make it easier on you to know that they seem to care for you.”

He looks at her and frowns in confusion. “How do you know?”

“A palace messenger came to our door yesterday while you were out.” She reaches into her robe and pulls something out of her pocket, placing it in his hand with a smile. Shang looks down and lets out a laugh. It’s a small terracotta flower pot holding a single pink-white blossom standing tall. Written around the pot, in dark, flowing lines of ink, are the characters that make up Mulan and Ping’s names. Flowerpot and magnolia. 

“The messenger asked after you,” his mother continues. “Supposedly he was sent by the Emperor, but I have my doubts.”

His chest goes tight. “Mother,” Shang says. “ I think I love them.”

She nods as if she was expecting this all along. “If anyone’s heart has enough love for two people, it’s yours.”

They watch the rest of the sunrise in silence, still except for the finger that Shang strokes gently up and down the magnolia’s petals. When the sun has peeked out from behind the horizon, his mother gets gracefully to her feet.

“I cannot make a decision for you,” she says again, “but when the heart and the mind are in accord, you may find that you’ve made the decision for yourself already. No matter what you choose, I will love you.”

She walks back inside to prepare for the day and wake the household, leaving Shang to his thoughts. But Shang finds that his mind is clearer than it’s been in months. The fork in the road before him has suddenly turned into a single, winding path.

* * *

Unlike when he came home, meandering and taking his time, he hurries back to the Capital. There’s a sense of urgency blooming deep in his stomach, making his heart pound as if it’s him racing along the road and not his horse. In his mind’s eye, there is a string, taut and red, that pulls him closer and closer to the City. It’s obvious to him who is on the other side.

What was a five day journey the first time is reduced to only three. Tian, as if sensing her master’s urgency, pushes herself to her limits so that by the time they ride into the city, she is sweating and foaming at the mouth. Dismounting at the bottom of the steps leading to the palace, Shang takes a moment to thank her, pressing his forehead to the side of her neck and running a hand along her shoulder to calm her.

He is recognized immediately. A stable boy comes to take Tian away, and three men in the uniform of the palace guards come to escort him to the Emperor.

“Yao?” Shang says incredulously when the first of the soldiers comes close enough to be recognizable. And then the figures of the other two fall into place as well, and Shang can’t help but laugh when Yao and Ling greet him enthusiastically and Chien Po hugs him tightly enough that Shang loses his breath. “What are you three doing here?”

“We’ve been promoted,” Yao brags, puffing out his chest.

“Out of all the soldiers, we were the only ones who followed Ping and Mulan with their crazy plan,” Ling adds.

“The Emperor rewards loyalty,” says Chien Po serenely. Shang is proud of them, and he tells them so. He may have trained them to fight, but their loyalty is all their own, and he’s glad that it’s been recognized.

“The Emperor is waiting for you,” Ling says. “He’s in the throne room.”

Shang is escorted through the palace, Ling guiding him and Yao and Chien Po walking a few steps behind. He is unused to being treated as though he is important, though he supposes he’d better get used to it. Every servant, lord, and lady they pass pauses and bows to him, so low that he can see the backs of their necks. Awkwardly, Shang turns his gaze in front of him and focuses instead on Ling.

The throne room is deep in the palace, behind an enormous pair of intimidating arched doors guarded by two equally as enormous and intimidating men. These two men drop to their knees when they see Shang.

“The Emperor expects you,” one of them says, rising so he and his companion can open the doors. Shang begins to feel nervous. No, not nervous—it’s anticipation rushing through his veins, not nerves. His heartbeat races. His palms sweat. He doesn’t remember the walk along the long, red carpet leading to the throne. He barely remembers seeing the Emperor, sitting on his golden dias like some old god come down from the heavens.

He remembers clearly, in brilliant detail, seeing Mulan and Ping again.

They are seated on silk pillows on either side of the Emperor, slightly below him on the steps. They look well. Their clothes are finer than anything Shang has ever seen on them, and their hair gleams like onyx in the firelight of the torches along the walls. Their tails are still, their ears relaxed, their eyes half-lidded. They look like pampered house cats, sitting at the side of a master who favorites them.

But General Li’s sword rests at Ping’s hip, and Shang can barely make out the outline of long knives hidden in Mulan’s sleeves. These house cats can fight. When Shang, belatedly, drops to his knees in front of the Emperor, they grin with sharp needle teeth, amused. 

“Your Imperial Majesty,” Shang says. 

“Captain Li Shang,” says the Emperor, and when Shang rises to his feet, there is an amused glimmer in the Emperor’s dark eyes. “You are very punctual. It is six months to the day when we last saw you.”

“My affairs are in order,” Shang says. He doesn’t let his eyes stray to either side of the throne. “And I’ve come to give an answer to the proposals I was offered six months ago.”

“By all means, give us your answer.”

Shang takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. 

“I’m afraid I must respectfully decline your gracious offer,” he says to the Emperor. “The life of a general wouldn’t suit me. And neither, I think, does a military life.”

A murmur of surprise ripples throughout the court. Yao, standing behind Shang, expresses his confusion loudly and with vulgarity until he is shushed gently by Ling’s elbow digging into his ribs.

“I must admit, I am surprised, Captain,” says the Emperor. “You have always excelled in the military.”

“I have, and I don’t wish to seem ungrateful for the opportunities the military has awarded me, the least of which is being able to serve my country and my Emperor.” The Emperor smiles appreciatively at the pretty words, and Shang silently thanks his mother for insisting on tutoring him in etiquette before sending him off to the training camp.

“Do you still wish to serve us?” the Emperor asks.

“Without question,” says Shang vehemently. “My loyalty lies with China, as it always will.”

“Then I believe I may have a position that will suit you.” The Emperor’s voice lifts and carries, making it clear that he is no longer talking to Shang while the court watches, but now is talking to the court, as well. “From this day forth, Li Shang shall be the third and final member of the Imperial Guard.”

Shang’s eyes widen. The room goes silent. Then, from the dias, come two soft, contented purrs.

“Thank you for the honor,” says Shang, bowing. “I will perform to the best of my abilities.”

“We have faith in you, Li Shang,” says the Emperor, and for once, Shang hears his name without any military title attached. It doesn’t chafe like he thought it would. If anything, it’s liberating.

He finally looks to Ping and Mulan. Their ears are pricked, and Ping’s tail is twitching slightly, and if Shang hadn’t spent so much time with them in the army, he wouldn’t have known these to be signs of their impatience. A small grin touches his lips. He likes making them feel off-balance, for once.

“In regards to the second proposal,” he says, and then takes a breath to steady himself. “I accept the offer of marriage from the Hua twins.”

The court breaks into chaos. Someone that sounds suspiciously like Ling shrieks in surprise. Yao curses again, violently and unchecked.

And in the middle of it all, Shang stands at the bottom of the dias, looking up at three regal figures. The Emperor is beaming openly, with an expression that feels oddly validating, like Shang has been judged and deemed worthy of the twins. Mulan and Ping, for their part, have finally broken their calm, collected facade. They’re both sitting up, ears at attention, deathly still in that unnerving way they have. Mulan’s eyes are wide. Ping is smiling brightly.

And Shang knows he’s made the right choice.

* * *

Things change after that, in a way he didn’t think they could.

The wedding is held immediately, and less than two weeks after entering the palace, Shang leaves it again, this time with his husband and his wife at his side. They have been given leave from the Emperor to present each other to their parents, and the Li household is first, given that it’s so close. It’s an enormous breach in tradition, but hadn’t Shang been warned that things would be odd? 

He still doesn’t mind in the least.

Shang is on Tian, and Mulan is riding Khan, and Ping is sitting in front of Shang, leaning back against his chest, watching the landscape go by. In their absence, Yao, Chien Po, and Ling have been named temporary Imperial Guards.

“You know,” Shang says that night, when they stop to make camp. “I was thinking about this earlier. Should I be paying a dowry to your parents?”

“The wife’s family pays the dowry, husband,” says Mulan, standing next to him with her thigh pressed against his shoulder while he kneels to make the fire.

“Perhaps normally,” Shang says. “But nothing about this is normal, is it? And anyway, you two proposed to me, and also half of this marriage is between two men, and also, as the Heroes of China, someone would have to be a fool to demand a dowry from your parents.”

Ping laughs. “You really have been thinking about this, haven’t you?” He flips onto his stomach on his bedroll and rests his head on his arms. “None of us will pay a dowry. We are the Heroes of China, but no more or less than you are, even if your title isn’t official.”

Shang carefully coaxes a small flame out of an even smaller spark, which will grow large enough to satisfy him in a few minutes. “The official title definitely makes you two more the Heroes than I.”

“Are you jealous?” Mulan asks. “Because you should know, Shang, that all of China reveres you as us, and the Emperor knows the role you played in saving the Empire. Isn’t that enough?”

“Of course it is,” says Shang, pulling her into his lap so he can kiss her. Ping, ever the attention hog, immediately abandons his bedroll to curl up against Shang’s back. “I was simply wondering how this is going to work out between us. I mean, you two are siblings, and I was never meant for a life like this.”

“Like what?” asks Ping. “Like reveling in glory? Like wearing fine silks and a finer collar?”

He reaches up as he speaks to finger the collar hanging at Shang’s neck. Like Mulan’s and Ping’s, it’s a simple thing, made of soft black leather that’s just snug enough not to shift without choking him. The most important parts of it are the charms that hang from a metal loop on the collar—a paw print and a sword, both made of shiny bronze. Mulan’s holds an empty golden bell; Ping’s, an empty silver one.

“Exactly,” Shang says. “I was raised for the military. I was to grow up and live and die among the ranks of soldiers. Above the ranks, if I was lucky.”

“That’s ridiculous,” says Mulan. “That was never your destiny.”

“How do you know?” 

She smiles at him smugly, her slit-pupiled eyes growing half-lidded. “Because you being here, with us? That was written in the stars. The ancestors told me so.”

* * *

And that’s another thing.

Shang met Mushu on the day of the wedding. He’s a feisty little dragon with the strangest accent and way of speaking, but he’s fiercely protective of the Hua twins, having been assigned to protect them by the Hua family ancestors themselves. 

“Don’t you hurt them, pretty boy, or I’m going to roast your ears and make you eat them.”

Shang bows to him and promises to protect the twins with is life, and, appeased, Mushu returns to Mulan’s neck, where he curls up like a scaly, living scarf. Mushu is the only one allowed to touch the collars, besides the Emperor or each other or, in dire cases, the princesses.

* * *

The presentation of Shang’s husband and wife to his family goes better than he expected.

What would normally be reason for disinheritance is now a cause for celebration simply because of the titles the Hua twins hold.

“It’s an honor to welcome you to our family,” Shang’s older brother says, bowing low. His wife and their mother and everyone else who has come to greet them follow suit.

“Wow,” says Ping, quietly and dryly, and Shang has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

His sister-in-law gives birth while they’re there, and she is embarrassed about it afterwards, even while her proud eyes and beaming, flushed face and protective grip on her child show how pleased she is, too. Mulan helps with the birth. Afterwards, she quietly confesses to Shang and Ping that she was close to throwing up the entire time. Children, it seems, are out of the question for the three of them, and Shang can only feel relieved at the thought.

After the feast the servants prepare to welcome them, when the household is beginning to drop off to sleep one by one, like stars fading under the force of the pale dawn light, Shang brings Mulan and Ping to his mother in the courtyard.

“She raised me,” Shang tells them. “She made me who I am today.”

Ping and Mulan bow low to her, their fists clasped in their hands, their eyes sincere and full of love when Mulan says, “For bringing our husband into this world, we honor you.”

Shang’s mother smiles and nods her head gracefully, and later still, when Mulan and Ping are curled around each other in bed and Shang is walking around the house, too restless to sleep, she finds him and says, “It seems your head and your heart have aligned quite nicely, my son. I’m proud of you, and I’m sure your father would be, too, if he were here.”

He hugs her tightly for long, long moments. The next morning, after breakfast, they head out. It’s a long ride to the Hua home, after all.

* * *

Mulan and Ping’s family is much different than Shang’s, but he feels no less at home in their house than he did at their own. 

Hua Zhou and his mother, who demands Shang call her Grandmother as soon as she lays eyes on him—they have the same furred ears and long, slim tail that Mulan and Ping have, though Hua Zhou’s are shot through with grey and Grandmother’s are nearly white. They both have long, droopy whiskers that protrude from their cheeks and hang almost to their shoulders.

“We’ll get them, too, when we get old,” says Ping. “And then kissing you will be interesting.”

Shang imagines it—he and Ping and Mulan, all of them old and grey but no less happy, no less in love, trading sweet, innocent kisses while above them, pink blossoms float gently to the ground. He wants so badly that it hurts, and his arm tightens around Ping’s waist in response. Ping grins at him as if he knows exactly what’s going through Shang’s mind.

The Hua family has no servants. Hua Zhou has no wives but the one he married for love. The family is small and tightly knit and loving, and they accept Shang into their fold with grace and open arms—and, from Grandmother, a comment about the breadth of Shang’s shoulders that has everyone blushing.

There is no feast, but there is a warm meal that Hua Li prepares herself, and afterwards, she and Shang take tea in the garden.

“It is odd, isn’t it, marrying two cats?” she asks him. Shang remembers that the Hua twins share everything, including and especially partners, and before he can remember his manners, a question escapes his mouth.

“Were you married to twins, as well?”

Hua Li pauses and Shang immediately flushes. 

“I apologize. I shouldn’t have—”

“I was,” says Hua Li, and Shang shuts his mouth instantly. “The brother of Zhou. His name was Hua Chin. He died in the first war, though I still wear his charm.”

She pulls her hanfu down just enough to show the bronze collar resting around her neck. The charms are a paw print and a sword, like his, and Shang wonders if the sword is because both generations of Hua twins gained their prestige at war or because the Hua twins are always raised to be lethal.

_Assassins_ , his mother called them.

Hua Li sighs, though her face is tranquil when Shang looks over at her.

“It is hard, Shang, being married to two people. Especially to Hua twins. People call them housecats, but the truth is they are more like lions, fierce and loyal and protective of what is theirs. They will never let you feel unloved. You might feel smothered for it.”

Shang thinks of his own household, bursting with people who, more often than not, tolerate each other at best. Only his mother has ever truly loved him.

“I think I’m okay with that,” he says, and takes a sip of his tea. Hua Li smiles and does the same.

* * *

When they arrive back at the palace, the first thing Shang does—after the three of them greet the Emperor, of course—is drag his husband and his wife to their private quarters, where he has a servant draw them a bath in the large, opulent tub in their bathroom.

He was, at first, uncomfortable with being naked in front of them; he has little interest, after all, in what normally happens in a marriage bed. The night they were married, he’d spent the entire walk to their room feeling nervous at what was to come, only to blink in quiet shock when Mulan and Ping did nothing but pull him down between them to sleep.

“You never smell aroused,” Mulan explains sleepily, much later. “Everyone in the army did at some point. Even Ping, and I did, too, I’m sure. But not you.”

It had been easier to bare himself to them, after that.

Now they sink into the silky, jasmine-scented heat of the bath to wash away the sweat and dirt and achiness of riding. Shang massages the tension out of Ping’s shoulders while Mulan washes Shang’s hair. The twins are purring. Shang can’t purr, but he can hum and let his eyes fall half-shut when Mulan’s clever fingers scratch lightly at his scalp, just behind his ear.

“I fear we’ve made our husband into a cat,” Mulan says softly. Ping lets his head loll forward, the ends of his hair barely skimming the surface of the water.

“Good,” he says. “He is a Hua lion, now, after all.”

And Shang smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic for myself quite a long time ago and only decided to post it for the spirit of sharing creative works. That being said, comments and kudos are always welcome! As always, the same conditions apply:
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